Is pet ownership cruel?

I don't plan to own any pets, primarily because pet ownership makes no sense, and secondly, because I would be worried sick about a pet while I was away at work. It's difficult enough to take care of a relative's pet while the owner is away for an extended trip. The animal would be constantly on my mind. It would negatively impact my productivity at work.

Where is the cruelty? Containing wild animals, or setting free animals that don't know how to fend for themselves? How about breeding the animals in the first place? I occasionally watch Animal Planet, and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) are always rescuing abused and neglected pets and stray feral pets.

I think we can ill afford to own pets, and especially those of us who can barely manage our own lives, let alone take care of our own children. Luckily, I have no children, but time and time again I hear stories of families who don't realize the expenses they incur for having a pet, and they can barely keep their kids in shoes.

Every month I imagine the Humane Society, ASPCA, and municipal animal control units around the country have no alternative but to euthanize many abandoned animals.

The solution is to break the financial incentives of breeding and selling pets from "Puppy Mills" by adopting a pet from an animal shelter and having your pet spayed or neutered.

As much as 25% of all dogs entering a shelter are pure breeds. Pure bred dogs often come with genetic defects that can cost the owner tens of thousands of dollars or more, over the life of the pet.

Ultimately, animals should be able to fend for themselves if they don't serve a useful purpose. 61% of dogs, 75% of cats entering shelters are euthanized.

See Surprising PET STATISTICS

Microsoft Access Database

I'm getting ready to upload the employment database for Microsoft Access. It will be rough because I'm teaching myself how to use Access, but I thought you might like to have a look at it. It will be at www.spfld.net

Job hunting.

I’ve been looking for work. Any work. I’m a college graduate. It should be easy, right? I keep my eyes and ears to the media, hoping to find something. Then I see statistics that show more high school graduates are working than college graduates.

How is that? That's easy! College graduates are not supposed to be looking for jobs. They are supposed to be making jobs. So, why are college students complaining about not finding work?

Evidently, it’s a symptom of a bigger problem, the General Requirements Curriculum. The big picture was completely missed. A plan was never formulated. In my case it’s easy because I got an Associate degree somewhere else and transferred credits, so I couldn’t even declare a minor.

My education was fractured by circumstances engineered by a capitalist society with no vision of long-term consequences, only greed at the top.

So now we have a large number of college graduates who don’t know entrepreneurship. They just try to look for work. This has been going on for a long time in the U.S. And guess what.

We have been creating our own terrorists. We have sent far too many foreign-exchange students out into the world without the crucial information needed to actually make work instead of complaining about not finding a job.

It's far too easy for zealots with money to take advantage of so many people who know just enough to make a bomb, but not enough to start a company making better mousetraps.

Here in the U.S. it's manageable because we have such a powerful and intrusive law enforcement system, and the culture is so homogeneous that volatile social cohesion is limited to urban street gangs.

Some high school teachers have caught on to this and are teaching entrepreneurship in the K-12 levels. It's too little too late because of one major obstacle, tenure.

Gee, it took me this long to figure it out? I'm in really bad shape. But at least I can see the candle in the distant window. Now I just have to find my way around the dark fjord of capitalist influence.

Checking out the Picasaweb

Since I recently upgraded from Dialup to DSL, I've been having alot of fun. I have pictures now at Picasaweb.google.com
From spfld

The Cursed Earth

Springfield has a problem; too many ancient burial grounds with curses. There are a couple of spots in particular that may not have documented histories of actual desecration. Springfield High School was built over a cemetery, and there are reports of haunting, but a public school is immune to such things more so than the small business.

There’s the Vinegar Hill Mall curse of High Business Turnover, and the curse that recently overtook Thirsty’s, which previously overtook the Ground Round in the same spot. Chi-Chi’s stood empty for more than a decade before it was finally demolished. It was once a good place to eat. What is happening?

MacArthur and Outer Park is a huge area of cursed earth. There is also the gas station that was abandoned at the corner of Wabash and Chatham road, right next to Papa John’s Pizza, and the gas station on the south side of Stevenson Drive, right across from the Quick-n-EZ at 11th Street.

Along the south side of Wabash, there was also the ancient car wash with the green roof. Sitting there for twenty years, it was finally demolished after the tornadoes last March.

That which was ignored for so long is gradually being realized by the next generations. Springfield is cursed. Its people suffer from sheer boredom, coupled with fear of trying something new. After all, what is there to do? Knight’s Action Park? Church? Bars? Movies? The Mall?

Is that really all there is here?